Old Movie Posters

Old Movie Posters

Old movie posters are one-sheets that were folded and other posters (some of which may have been unfolded) that were printed in addition to the one-sheet but are no longer used today: window card, insert, half-sheet, 2-sheet, 3-sheet and 6-sheet. Before the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s, one-sheets issued to theaters were folded. After the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s, almost all one-sheets are unfolded.

Classic Movie Posters

Classic movie posters are posters for old movies such as The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with The Wind, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Rio Grande, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Dr. No that have enduring popularity. Contemporary classic movie posters are posters for movies such as The Godfather, the Star Wars trilogy, American Graffiti, Jaws, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Platoon that continue to be popular but have not been on the scene long enough to be considered as having enduring popularity.

Limited Number of Old Movie Posters

Unless there is a reprint or reproduction of a poster of a classic movie, the only posters that exist today are original posters printed at the time of theatrical release.

If the original printing(s) is all that there is, how many posters for a particular title, type and style could there be potentially available for sale? In order to determine that, a couple of figures would be required: (1) the number of posters printed of the same title, type and style and (2) the number that have been thrown away or destroyed.

Unfortunately, there are no public sources that we can use to find the number of posters printed. Unlike other collectibles, such as coins and stamps, the number of which were minted and printed is in the public record, old posters were printed by private companies whose records are not public. The best we can do now is estimate (or guess at) the number printed by how widely the movie was released. (In other words, if the film was shown in many theaters, it's likely more posters were printed than for a film which was shown in a small number of theaters.)

How many have been thrown away or destroyed? This may be even more difficult to assess because posters were widely distributed to local theaters. Like the total number printed, I'm not aware of any public source to which we can turn providing in detail the number thrown away by theaters and theater exchanges after use or because they were damaged to point the point that they were no longer usable, as well as the number that have been thrown away or destroyed between now and then.

Given these unknowns, determining the true number of posters potentially available for sale may be impossible, as there could be caches of posters in storage or presumedly lost that could surface at any time.

Note: Does limited number of old movie posters mean they are scarce? Scarcity implies that (1) the demand for an item exceeds supply (number of items actually made available for sale) and (2) this pattern has been observed over a period of time. Posters deemed to be scarce often sell for more than those deemed to be in adequate supply. Some infer the scarcity of a poster from an analysis of its market activity over a period of time, but an inference based upon activity in the past may not predict the future. For example, a poster considered to be scarce now could be considered the opposite in the future if there is an increase in supply that meets or exceeds demand or a dramatic decrease in demand. (An item, even limited in supply, is not scarce if there is no demand for it.) Conversely, a poster now considered to be plentiful in supply could be considered scarce in the future if there are significant changes in demand and/or supply.

Authenticity of Old Movie Posters

When collectors pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for old posters it's not usual for there to be nagging doubts about the authenticity of the posters. An often complaint heard in collector's circles is that a seller misrepresented a reprinted or reproduction poster as an "authentic" or "original" poster. In addition to the question of authenticity, there may be an issue about grading that may haunt a collector who suspects that she may have paid more for a poster than what it's "really worth" given its condition.

Condition and Grading of Old Posters

The condition of old posters can vary considerably. Almost all were folded and suffer to some degree from deterioration common to documents and art printed on paper with acid content, wear and tear from use in theaters and long-term storage. Posters on the market can range from copies that are pristine (unused and appear to be in almost the same condition as when they were originally printed) to posters that are severely degraded. Examples are listed below along with possible causes:

paper that has turned yellow or brown from aging [from deterioration]
colors that have faded [from use in theaters or deterioration]
paper that is brittle and falling apart [from deterioration]
chipping or flaking of the paper [from deterioration]
separations along the horizontal and vertical folds [from use in theaters or deterioration]
rips, tears, small holes, large holes and missing pieces of paper [from use in theaters]
spots, stains or smudges [from use in theaters or improper storage]
soiling [from use in theaters or improper storage]
tape repairs, stains caused by tape residue [from use in theaters]
warping and creasing [from use in theaters, deterioration or improper storage]
extra folds [from use in theaters or manufacturing defect]
marks made by pencils, pens, crayons, indelible markers [from use in theaters]
writing on the paper [from use in theaters]
censor stamps or labels [from use in theaters]

Posters that are in pristine (no observable deficiencies) to excellent condition (small number of deficiencies) tend to be more desirable than copies which are severely degraded or have a large number of deficiencies. I say "tend to be" because if there are only a few known copies of a poster and they are all degraded then any copy of the poster might be desirable regardless of the number deficiencies. (For reference, here's an example of old movie poster that appears to be in almost the same condition as it was when originally printed : The Cowboy.)

In lieu of listing all of a poster's deficiencies in detail, some sellers assign a grade to a poster based upon its overall condition. The overall condition (or grade) of the poster is expressed by reference to an ordinal scale that has some or all of the following categories: mint (M), near-mint (NM), excellent (EX), very fine (VF), fine (F), very good (VG), good (G), fair (F) or poor (P) condition. Other sellers may use letters (such as A to D or A to F) or numbers (such as 1 to 5 or 1 to 10) to represent the overall condition of a poster.

Buying an Old Poster

When buying an old poster, I consider its condition important for several reasons.

The better the condition the better it will look when displayed.
Estimating a "fair" or "reasonable" price for the poster. I would expect to pay more for a poster in pristine condition than I would for a poster that is moderately to severely degraded.

A significant proportion of the old posters on the market today are being sold by mail order. When buying by mail order, assessing the condition of the poster can be difficult for a number of reasons.

I'm unable to personally inspect it. I have to take the seller's word about the condition of the poster.
A seller apparently uses a grading scale but does not publish the defining characteristics and/or list of deficiencies associated with each of the categories of the scale. If I'm considering a poster listed, for example, in "fine" condition, how would I know what the condition of the poster is if the seller has not published the characteristics and deficiencies associated with this category?
Categories of a grading scale that are defined by a list of deficiencies a poster must have along with list of deficiencies it could have. A poster graded as "fine," for example, will have the requisite deficiencies but could have more [optional] deficiencies and still be considered as "fine."
A poster's condition is described as spanning more than one grade. If a poster is advertised, for example, in "fine to near mint condition," does this mean that the seller has more than one poster in stock and the poster I receive could be in "fine," "very fine," "excellent" or "near mint" condition? Or the next category after "fine" in the seller's grading scale is "near mint" and the poster is on the borderline between "fine" and "near mint"?
A poster has been mounted on fabric. With the practice of mounting (see below) popular among some collectors and sellers of old movie posters, old posters available on the market today may be mounted on fabric. If a poster has been mounted on fabric it's possible that in addition to mounting it has also been repaired. The condition of the poster prior to mounting may not be fully disclosed, with the poster's condition being described as it is presently in "mounted" condition. For example, a poster may be tersely described as "in excellent condition on linen" or "EX condition LB." What does this mean: a poster that was "in excellent condition before mounting" or the mounted poster now "appears comparable to an unmounted poster in excellent condition even though it may have been heavily repaired"?

Note: A high resolution picture(s) of a poster may be helpful in determining its condition but I would not consider it a substitute for a detailed description of a poster's deficiencies.

Mounting of Old Posters

It's not usual for some collectors to have posters which have significant wear, tear and deterioration mounted on fabric and repaired before displaying or selling them. The process of mounting a poster on fabric is often referred to as "linen backing" (often abbreviated as "LB") by those who offer the service, even though the fabric used for mounting might not be actual "linen" made from the fibers of the flax plant but from another plant. Other collectors routinely use fabric mounting regardless of the condition of the poster to reduce the visibility of fold lines of one-sheets or to join the panels or sections together of very large posters such as 3 sheets (41" x 81") and 6 sheets (81" x 81").

Those who "linen back" posters often claim that it's a "reversible" process (unlike dry mounting) and that if a poster is mounted on fabric that it may help to "preserve" or prolong the life of a poster. Without knowing the type of materials that may have been (or could be) used in the process, I doubt that it would be possible to predict what kind of long-term effect (either positive or negative) fabric mounting might have on a particular old poster.

If buying a poster mounted on fabric, I would ask the seller for an invoice from the conservator (or individual who "linen backed" the poster) detailing all of the work performed on the poster along with a detailed list of all the materials used in the process. If having a poster mounted, I would ask the conservator to provide a list of all the materials they intend to use before contracting with them for their services. If having a poster mounted with the intention of selling it, in addition to the above, I would take high resolution pictures of the poster before and after mounting and provide these pictures to the buyer along with a copy of the conservator's invoice listing in detail all of the materials used in the process.

(The American Institute for Conservation's "Caring for Works of Art on Paper" and the Northeast Document Conservation Center's "What is Paper Preservation" would be a good starting point in learning about the conservation of posters and prints.)

Old Posters Printed on Coated Paper

When studios began to print a portion of posters on coated paper, printers, just like all the posters they had done before and the ones they were still printing on uncoated stock, mechanically folded them before they were shipped out to the poster exchanges and NSS warehouses for distribution. The folding process can be more detrimental to coated posters compared to older posters that were printed on uncoated paper. On some coated posters the folding process can actually break the fibers on the surface and expose the white fibers underneath making fold lines very pronounced, especially if the poster has a dark background (click on the following link to see a folded movie poster on coated stock). Some collectors attempt to minimize the appearance of fold lines on posters printed on both coated and uncoated paper by having them mounted and then having the folds "touched up" or covered over with paint or ink, but this can be an expensive process to make a folded poster "appear" as if it had never been folded.

Classic Movie Posters are often Expensive

It's not usual for collectors to pay hundreds (and for some titles thousands) of dollars for original movie posters of classic movies such as Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Sean Connery's James Bond movies, classic 1950s Sci-fi such as The Attack of the 50ft Woman and Godzilla, Universal Studios movie monsters such as Frankenstein and The Mummy, Marilyn Monroe's movies. Although contemporary movie posters are generally moderately priced, posters for contemporary classics can be relatively expensive. For example, it's not usual for an original Star Wars Style A movie poster or Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales movie poster to sell for well over a $100.

Please note: The links above to the Star Wars and The Outlaw Josey Wales movie posters show rolled reprints. The artwork is the same but it's likely that most of the original posters were folded after they were printed and will show fold lines when displayed. Evidence of folds is not always a guarantee that an old poster is original, as there is nothing to prevent someone from hand folding a reprinted poster (see Machine Folded Movie Posters).

The most expensive classic posters are one-sheets from the first or original release of classic movies. One-sheets of re-releases of classic movies and of first release B-list movies (unless the film is a cult classic, Hammer Studios horror, a Hammer Studios movie monster or B-list Westerns featuring Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, Randolf Scott, Audy Murphy, John Wayne or Buck Jones) are generally less expensive. There are a few exceptions, though. The re-release poster for The Asphalt Jungle may sell for more than the first release because Marilyn Monroe was not featured on the poster. When she became a "star" the movie was released again with her image featured prominently on the poster.

Value of Old Movie Posters

I receive many inquiries from people asking about the "value" of a particular old poster. For any old or contemporary movie poster its value can only be determined by referring to its subjective value. In other words, the aesthetic value placed on it as a work of art, and/or the historical value placed on it as an artifact of culture, and/or the emotional value placed on it as a collectible or memento, and/or the monetary value placed on it determined by the amount money we are willing to pay for it, or if selling, the amount of money that a buyer offers for it.

Estimating the Value of a Poster

When asking about the value of poster, I suspect that people usually mean the monetary value. "If I sell the poster, how much [money] can I get [expect to be offered] for it?"

The conventional method of estimating the monetary value of a poster is to lookup in buyer's guides, poster price guides and electronic databases the prices or prices at which a poster of the same title, type, style, year of release and grade has sold previously or to lookup the current (selling) price or prices of a poster of the same title, type, style, year of release and grade for sale by individual sellers, part-time dealers, movie poster stores and galleries.

This method of estimating the value of a poster, however, does not guarantee that

there is a buyer(s) ready and willing to pay a listed price for a poster (or if there are multiple listings for a poster of the same title, type, style, year of release and grade that there is a buyer(s) willing to pay any of the listed prices).
the reported (or advertised) grade of a poster accurately reflects the actual condition of the poster transferred (or will be transferred) to the buyer.
a buyer was satisfied with the price he or she paid. (In other words, if he could do the transaction all over again, would he pay as much as, more or less than he did previously?)

A poster could actually be worth more if it's in better condition than any of the posters of the same type, style, year of release and grade that were previously sold or are currently on the market. If the poster turns out to be of lower quality than any of the posters previously sold or on the market today it could be worth less. If the poster is determined to be a reprint or reproduction it could be worth considerably less.

If the market for a particular poster is saturated (i.e., all of the buyers who are willing to pay a certain price have already purchased a poster) then it may only be worth a fraction of the price for which the poster has previously sold.